'Bezos tops the world's billionaires… South Korean No. 1 is Kim Jung-ju'

Although numerous people died and the economies of each country were in trouble due to the new coronavirus epidemic, the assets of the world's leading billionaires have grown faster.

According to data released by the U.S. think tank Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) on the 31st (local time), the combined assets of 2,365 rich people around the world have jumped 54 percent from 8.4 trillion dollars to 12.39 trillion dollars over the past year. Based on statistics such as Forbes and Bloomberg, IPS produced a report comparing changes in property from March 18 last year to March 18 this year for rich people with current net assets of more than $1 billion.

The world's richest man was Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, up 58 percent from $178.1 billion in a year. French President Bernard Arno's family rose 114 percent to $162.6 billion, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk ranked third with $162.1 billion. It was followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates (126.5 billion dollars, 29 percent increase), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (101.7 billion dollars, 86 percent increase), and Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett (96.5 billion dollars, 43 percent increase).

Of the 2,365 rich people, about 30 Koreans were among them. NXC CEO Kim Jung-joo ranked 144th, the highest with $14.1 billion. Seo Jung-jin, honorary chairman of Celltrion (13.8 billion dollars), Kim Bum-soo, chairman of Kakao's board of directors (9.7 billion dollars), and Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics (8.4 billion dollars) were on the list. Lee's wealth did not reflect the inheritance of late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who passed away in October last year.